Berum Castle

The first documentary evidence of a chieftain family residing at this ancestral seat dates back to 1310. In the 15th century, the castle passed into the possession of the Cirksena family. Count Ulrich I had the complex expanded into a castle with a three-winged main and outer bailey in 1443 and married Theda here in 1455. Between 1475 and 1481, Alf, the son of Count Gerd of Oldenburg, was imprisoned here after an incursion into East Frisia. Edzard II completed the expansion into a Renaissance moated castle with a spire in 1591. His widow Katharina, daughter of the Swedish King Gustav Vasa, later added extensions, including a chapel, making Berum a widow's residence. In 1600, the “Berum Settlement” was concluded here, definitively assigning the Harlingerland to East Frisia. A tragic incident occurred in 1628 when Count Rudolf Christian was fatally wounded in an argument at the castle. Under Countess Dowager Christine Charlotte, the castle underwent further transformations in the second half of the 17th century. In 1734, the wedding of Prince Carl Edzard to Princess Sophie Wilhelmine of Brandenburg-Bayreuth took place at the castle. After Carl Edzard's death in 1744, the castle fell into the possession of Prussia under Frederick II.